Half Broke Horses, the winner by a head

Well, I did something I hardly ever do. I started reading one book then started another before finishing the first one. Shame. The first book? The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

I know! I love her books, usually. I'm having trouble loving this one though. I started it, liked it okay but never really got absorbed in the storyline. Those darned foreign settings. They trip me up nearly every time. This one is set in Mexico and the U.S. I don't know what it is. I guess I just can't relate.

Anyway, I saw Half Broke Horses on the New Books table at the Phoenix library when I was picking up some movies on the reserve shelf. I grabbed it! I loved The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. If you love memoirs (I do!) and you love larger than life tales (I do!), I think you'll love it. So, I figured I'd also like Half Broke Horses. I did.

The cover calls it "a true life novel," because it's based on Walls' maternal grandmother's life but she wrote it in first person and filled in the blanks, the details when she really didn't know exactly what was said or some of what happened. But this was as good as The Glass Castle, in my opinion. The book covers Lily Casey Smith's life from when she was about 10 years old till the 1950s. The woman was incredible. We have nothing to complain about.

I zipped through the book, then went to the Scottsdale library to pick up some movies (yes, I watch a lot of movies) and saw Cleaving, sitting on the New Non-fiction shelf, by that narcissistic whiner Julie Powell (Julie and Julia). So, I sat down to read a little to see if I could stomach it; it's about her new-found love--being a butcher. Yick. I hate cutting up meat, but I have to admit, I got sucked it. So, now I'm reading it. I must be in a memoir mood.

We'll see if in a few days when I finish Cleaving if The Lacuna opens up to me again.

Book Read:  Half Broke Horses
Author:  Jeannette Walls
ISBN: 978-0-670-02165-9

What, me worry?

Alfred E. Neuman had it right. Why worry?

I reluctantly took my cat bookmark out of the book (page 215, page 215, page 215) and stuck it in my purse. Then I dropped the tome (Under the Dome) (yes, I'm a poet and don't know but my feet show it, they're LONGFELLOWS!) into the outside slot at the library. It fit after all.

Went inside. Walked to the Best Picks display and there it was, another copy of Under the Dome sitting, waiting for me. Checked it out. Stuck the cats back in (page 215). Brought it home. And got my exercise to boot (lugging the thing there and another copy back home).

Off to read more about the "clustermug" that the dome has created in Chester's Mill, Maine.

What are you reading?

Under the Dome... Stephen King does it again

I picked up Under the Dome by Stephen King, and that's a feat in itself (this sucker is nearly 2-1/2 inches thick with more than 1,000 pages), at the library a few weeks ago. I didn't start reading it right away, but I should have. It's a library Best Picks book, so when I went online to renew it, I found out it's not renewable. Dang.

So, now I'm into it, sucked in, on page 111 at the chapter called The Good of the Town, The Good of the People, and it's due tomorrow. I read fast but not that fast. What to do? What to do?

Well, I plan on taking it inside and handing it to a librarian because for one thing, I really don't think it will fit in that skinny slot out front. And maybe I can ask if they can check it in and reshelf it... immediately? Please?! We'll see.